Thursday, September 15, 2011

It's a tie for the chip lead at 200,000 chips. Both players with 200K in front of them can be found in The Event Center at table 5.

Ken Adams is in seat-3 looking diagonally at Alex Venovski in seat 8 and both can brag they have the most in the room. Of course things can change quickly around here, like the weather in (insert your home town).

As for the rest of the field, so far the only other stack I saw gaining ground on Ken and Alex is Jim Welsh (Kissimmee, FL) who has 180,000.

If you see Jim make sure to wish him a happy birthday - it's today.

"I'm usually not lucky but today I have been so I guess it's a birthday gift" laughed Jim.

As we chatted I said "I'll be here until 2am" which lead another player to chime in, "hopefully we will be too."

No strangers to Borgata Poker or each other, Edwin Lau & Marguerite Spagnuolo have been seated next to each other at Table 1 since the event began. Everyone else is gone while Lau & Spagnuolo managed to survive the talkative table.

Marguerite was sweating her friend Darlene Jackson last night who made the final table in Event 14. Hmm, I don't see Darlene returning the favoring and railing Marguerite. Just saying...

Another Table 1 casualty fell right before my eyes.

Opponent 1 re-shoved all in for 60,000 total, at risk. Opponent 2 tanks a bit then calls and tables A-K.

99 vs. AK.

As soon as the flop shows Q-A-2, Opponent 1 hangs his head, stands up, gets his jacket, and looks away ready to exit.

Just as the turn card 10 hits the felt, Edwin says, "Oh Wow!" pretending a nine fell giving his boy a set. Opponent 1 looks to the felt expecting to see a nine and extend his tournament life - instead he sees the ten and is the butt of a joke. The timing was right on and the table did laugh. Actually, Opponent 1 laughed too - what a good sport.

Colleen Lewis will take all your chips with a smile. Borgata is her casino but is only to play every so often, trying to come in for a hit and run. Looking down at bullets when you only have 14,000 left will certainly help her cause. Colleen triples up to 48,000.

Mike Rodriguez (Ledgewood, NJ) says "nicely done" as his wired sevens go down in flames. Mike says he's been beating up on Colleen all day and was happy to see her win one with her tournament at risk.

Board ran: 6-3-8-J-6

Third Opponent mucked after seeing Colleen's hand.

"Nice to get aces there. I was so nervous" laughed Colleen.

Lewis finished 2nd in the Ladies Event during the 2009 Borgata Summer Poker Open.Break coming up at the end of this level.

Cornell Cimpan raised, then folded to an all-in shove. Cornell showed the pocket 9s he was folding. Then his opponent showed his pocket 3s.

Cornell Cimpan

It appears that the player on table two, seat 1, is the chip leader with about 190k. He wants to remain anonymous, for now.

Table 11 is gone so 10 tables are left. Ken Adams was then moved from table 10 to table 9 to balance, so he is no longer seated left of Jonathan Little. Now he's seated left of Christian Harder and two seats right of Eugene Todd.

The PLO H/L championship came down to a battle of the big stacks and when Tommy Blank (Stamford, CT) stacks the final chip he takes the title and the $12,222 first prize. He outlasts the field of 120 players who ponied up a total of $42,000 of buy-in money and battled over two days.

Blank asserted himself as the chip leader with 40 players left and maintained a top stack the rest of the way. In the end he finished just ahead of Zelig Flaschstatz (Queens, NY), who took home $6,772 as runner-up.

The most bizarre part of the tournament happened as the bubble broke at the end of Day 1 when Douglas Hamshaw (Marlborough, NH) walked away from a winning hand and thought he busted from the tournament. He was tracked down on the casino floor and was told that he had tripled-up and actually made the money.

"I had just lost a big pot and
had so few chips that I cashed it in mentally," said Hamshaw, who's account can be read here. "The
lesson is stay until the hand is really over."

When play resumed Day 2, Hamshaw's new life was short lived as he was the first to cash with an 18th place finish ($611). Day 1 chip leader Eddie Espino (Piscataway, NJ) couldn't get anything going and his elimination (11th/$815) set the final table.

Most of the notable players failed to make the money including Event 9 (HORSE/$14,319) Champion Jeffrey Duvall (London, England) and WSOP bracelet holder Chris Reslock (Atlantic City, NJ). Other PLO specialists included Bill Seymour, James Boyd, and Dr. Will Noyes.

The biggest names to cash were Brian Woods (Baltimore, MD) the 2010 Borgata Winter Poker Open Event 1 winner for $100,000, who finished 8th/$1,222 in this event and Larry Gold (Medford, NY), who has multiple Borgata cashes including a second place finish in the Borgata Winter Poker Open HOSE event.

But in the end its Blank who wins it "for the beans." He's been playing poker professionally for nine years
and says he "moved into" Borgata three months ago where you can find him
daily in the high limit room playing games as high as $300/$600.

Blank is the PLO H/L champion as he wins the cash, the trophy and the Blue Shark Optics sunglasses.

Blank has been playing poker professionally for nine years and says he "moved into" Borgata three months ago where you can find him daily in the high limit room playing games as high as $300/$600. He loves to play games like PLO H/L and would like to see them on a more regular basis.

Blank adds that he's the only person at Borgata without a sell phone and doesn't believe in Facebook. He loves the idea of playing poker "for the beans."

As the Borgata Poker Open enters its 2nd week, many PPI players have already had success in several events. Vinny Pahuja, Mike Dentale, Gordon Eng and several others have made deep runs in the large field events.

As the WPT Championship Event nears, expect to see many more PPI Pros checking into the TOP destination for poker players.

The Borgata has long been a favorite stop for both local players and those who travel the circuit. The accommodations, night life, restaurants, spa/gym, in combination with the best tournaments and staff are just a few of the reasons you will find such large fields of players from all over the world at any Borgata event.

Check out www.ppipoker.com to see our rosters of players and follow them on their journey to capture poker glory!

Coudon has been a poker pro five years and is feeling the effects of the DOJ Black Friday crackdown on U.S. internet poker. This was his first live PLO H/L tournament and Couden says he navigated a 5k short stack at the Day 1 dinner break all the way to a third place finish.

Montilla is a financial executive who plays most of his poker in the high limit room. This was his first PLO H/L tournament and says he "loves it." His tournament ends after surviving what he says seems like "30 all ins," throughout the two day event.

Instead of supporting him on the rail, Montilla's wife Daisy was there in spirit as she was spending her time at Borgata playing the slots.

With the breaking of tables and moving of players in this event, tough tables just get tougher as surviving players from broken tables get moved into empty seats.

Jeffrey Papola and Todd Terry

This has happened on table 8 and resulted in Todd Terry landing on the immediate left of Jeffrey Papola.

Todd's tournament earnings are approaching 2 million. Jeffrey's WSOP bracelet from 2010 accounts for about a third of his $1.7 million in tournament earnings. These two know how to work their chips, so this will make an interesting match-up.

Lynch is currently a golf assistant at Jumping Brook CC in Neptune, NJ after a career as a regional pro golfer. He plays poker recreationally and loves coming to Borgata.

"Unless you're the best in the world you don't get to play golf against Tiger Woods. Poker isn't like that and at Borgata you never know who's going to be at the table and you may get the chance to play against some of the players you see on tv."

Palermo has been quiet this series after cashing three times in the Borgata Winter Poker Open for $55,000 (3rd/4th/14th). While he's yet to cash in September he's quick to point out that he's 6 for 6 in getting a voucher for surviving until the dinner break.

Not even half way through the first level and Ken Adams (Washington, D.C.) already has a bounty and the chip lead.

On a board of Q 9 3 K all the chips are in the middle and Adams turns over the nut straight with J 10. His opponent has two pairs with KQ and still has outs, but when the boat misses the river the player sets sail for the rail.

Gavin Smith made an appearance and put his last chips in holding 5-3 suited on a Q-6-4 flop. Mike 'Little Man' Sica had him covered and bet with A-Q. Gavin missed his draw and was out.

100 players made the cash after Ted Kaplun (Philadelphia, PA) had A-K vs A-K and lost to a flush. Wow, what a sick bubble.

Last Woman Standing was a battle between May Siu and Darlene Jackson. Darlene was down to 5 big blinds after the bubble and made a comeback to take down the LWS and impressively finished in 7th place overall for $8,388. May finished in 18th.